He stared at me steadily without speaking. I saw the state of confusion and embarrassment from which he suffered, and I actually revelled in the difficulty in which I had placed him. I perceived all the advantage of my position, and resolved to profit by it.
“One thing is quite evident,” said I, calmly and collectedly, like a man who weighed all his words, and spoke with deep deliberation,—“one thing is quite evident, you could scarcely have presumed to take such a liberty with your Prince as to present to him, and place at the same table with him, a man whom you picked up from the streets,—one whose very station marked him for an outcast, whose exterior showed his destitution. This, I conclude, you could not have dared to do; and yet it is in the direct conviction that such was my position yesterday, I sit here now, trying to reconcile such inconsistency, and asking myself which of us two is in the wrong.”
“My good friend,” said O'Kelly, with a deliberation fully the equal of my own, and in a way that, I must confess, somewhat abashed me,—“my good friend, do not embarrass yourself by any anxieties for me. I am quite able and ready to account for my actions to any who deem themselves eligible to question them.”
“From which number,” said I, interrupting, “you would, of course, infer that I am to be excluded?”
“By no means,” said he, “if you can satisfy me to the contrary. I shall hold myself as responsible to you as to any one of those gentlemen who have just left us, if you will merely show me sufficient cause.”
“As how, for instance?” asked I.
“Simply by declaring yourself the rightful possessor of a station and rank in life for which your habits and manners plainly show you to be fitted. Let me be convinced that you have not derogated from this by any act unworthy of a man of honor—”
“Stop, sir,” said I. “By what right do you dare to put me on my trial? Of your own free will you presumed to ask for my companionship. You extended to me an equality which, if not sincere, was an insult.”
“Egad! if you be really a gentleman, your reasons are all good ones,” said O'Kelly. “I own, too, frankly, I intended my freak as the subject of a wager. If I be caught in my own toils, I must only pay the penalty.”
“And give me satisfaction?”